Abstract
Supply chain optimization and optimizing the construction and field development schedule of oil and gas projects has become quintessential for energy companies in order to cope with changing economic situations, avoid cost overruns and delays in starting production. While the construction process and the individual tasks of it are determined in the planning stage and encounter only limited changes, the economic environment, the duration of tasks and other outside factors, such as the weather, are subject to strong uncertainty and hence this uncertainty needs to be taken into account in the planning and supply chain management process for oil and gas projects. We present a new framework for the integration of technical and economic uncertainties for optimizing the supply chain and the project schedules. Furthermore, we also integrate the option to establish regional distribution center facilities in order to route equipment and material through these facilities to the projects. The operations decision framework was then examined on a realistic test case in the northern Eurasian region where we performed a scenario based optimization in which certain transport links may break down due to either political, environmental or other reasons, affecting both the links as well as the duration of the project schedules. The results outline the importance of taking into account the uncertainty in order to create a sustainable value generating supply chain and project scheduling methodology. Furthermore, the results indicate that while robustness is critical, the establishment of a larger number of regional distribution center facilities is not necessitated in order to maintain robustness and minimize cost. Finally, given the target completion date, the framework delivers a schedule that with almost certainty leads even in various event scenarios to an in-time schedule.